(Financial Times, Benedict Mander, 23.Sep.2018) — Green energy groups say huge shale oil and gas reserve is leaking greenhouse gases.
Jorge Daniel Taillant used a $100,000 infrared camera this year to investigate whether oil and gas installations in Vaca Muerta were leaking toxic gases. The grainy black-and-white thermal images that the ecology activist took confirmed what he suspected.
Although invisible to the naked eye, gases were detected seeping into the atmosphere from every one of the sites he visited. Particularly significant was methane, a potent greenhouse gas.
“Methane is leaking everywhere,” says Mr Taillant, executive director of the Center for Human Rights and Environment, a non-governmental organisation founded in Argentina and now based in the US. He says at least 5 per cent of Vaca Muerta gas produced is lost, often leaked intentionally when pressure needs to be released.
“There is a history of abuse as no one is controlling the sector,” says Mr Taillant. “And that’s not going to change any time soon — there is no credible environmental authority.”
Argentina’s ambitions to develop Vaca Muerta are ringing alarm bells among environmentalists, since it is considered to be one of the few remaining significant but mostly undeveloped energy reserves left on the planet.
As such, some experts say the development of Vaca Muerta and other comparable resources in Venezuela and Russia could jeopardise the UN 2016 Paris Agreement on climate change.
“If Argentina is to fully develop Vaca Muerta, it would blow a hole in the carbon budget,” argues Guy Edwards, co-director of Brown University’s climate and development lab in the US.
“It is one of the key reserves that, according to climate science, should stay underground if there is a chance of achieving the Paris goals,” he adds.
Most recognise it is unrealistic to expect Argentina to leave Vaca Muerta untouched. Its development is considered a national priority across the political spectrum, given its potential as an engine for economic growth. Javier Iguacel, the energy secretary, ridiculed the idea that Argentina might simply stop exploiting its hydrocarbons. “ Norway is not going to stop producing oil, and nor are we,” he says.
Argentina’s energy-related emissions are projected to increase 45 per cent between 2010 and 2030, according to the Berlin-based non-profit institute Climate Analytics, largely because of Vaca Muerta. Few expect Buenos Aires to meet its commitment to the Paris Agreement. Like every other country, its goals were not very ambitious to begin with, says Mr Edwards.
Instead, activists are pushing to mitigate the problems that can be controlled, with methane being “far and above the biggest issue from a climate perspective”, says Jonathan Banks, senior policy adviser at the Clean Air Task Force, a green energy advocate.
Although carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for as long as 1,000 years, methane begins to disappear after 20, during which time it is more than 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide in warming the climate, Mr Banks says.
Fortunately, he adds, methane is also one of the easiest and cheapest climate problems to deal with. That is why many countries and regions such as Canada, Mexico and California have focused on methane emissions when finding ways to meet Paris targets.
“Good maintenance, better equipment and installations, and just good practices can dramatically reduce emissions from these developments,” Mr Banks adds. “As far as climate change goes, it’s cheap stuff. It’s not a nuclear power plant, it’s tightening bolts.”
A study by the International Energy Agency found it is possible to reduce global methane emissions from the oil and gas industry by up to half at no net cost. That would be equivalent to shutting down every coal plant active in China today, the report says.
Yet even if Argentina succeeds in reducing methane emissions, there is the broader question of whether developing Vaca Muerta makes strategic sense, given how environmental concerns and technological advances are shaking up the energy sector.
The Inter-American Development Bank recently highlighted the danger of “stranded assets”, given that renewable energy is becoming increasingly competitive, warning that countries could be stuck with fossil fuel infrastructure that may become obsolete faster than expected. Others, such as Brown University’s Mr Edwards, say backing fossil fuels risks curtailing interest in renewable energy.
Argentina’s plan is to supply its own market with renewable energy and the gas from Vaca Muerta, which officials say is cleaner than other options. This is despite concerns from environmental lobbyists that leaking methane could be just as bad as the pollution from coal-fired power stations. If Argentina manages to fulfil its goal of becoming a net exporter of gas, this could even help China rely less on its dirty coal-fired power stations, indirectly aiding the environment, Mr Iguacel says.
“What’s the timeframe?” Mr Edwards asks. “If most countries are on some kind of path to decarbonising their energy sectors, do you really want to be pumping billions into an industry that is looking like it is on the way out in the coming decades?”
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